Selling a Home at Four Seasons Nevis

Dan Merriam works from an office in the lobby of Four Seasons Resort Nevis. It is one of the offices he operates out of in the Eastern Caribbean, and it is where owners at the resort can sit down with him rather than ring a call centre on another island.

When an owner lists with the practice, Dan Merriam & Associates signs the listing agreement directly with the owner. That is worth knowing at the start, because the first question any careful seller should ask an agent is whose name goes on the agreement, who handles the transaction and who is paid the commission. Here the answer is one firm.

A listed home sits alongside the rest of the resort’s current inventory on the Four Seasons Nevis page — estate villas in Palm Grove and Belmont Estate, land, Nevis Peak residences and fractional shares at Pinney’s Beach — so a buyer already looking at the resort sees it next to everything it competes with. The practice works mainly with American, Canadian, British and European private clients, many of whom are buying with a second citizenship in view.

Each home above is marked sold. Where a sale was handled off market, the price is available on request.

“A home at Four Seasons Nevis” describes at least three different assets, and each sells to a different buyer on different terms.

A whole-ownership villa or estate home. Privately owned, sold owner to owner by private treaty. Almost nothing is standardised: the view, the neighbourhood, the lot, the pool, the state of the renovation and the rental history all move the price, so a valuation has to be built from genuinely comparable homes rather than an estate-wide average.

A fractional share at the Villas at Pinney’s Beach. A one-tenth share carries five weeks of personal use a year and a one-sixth share eight. A resale share competes with shares the developer is still selling, often from a lower starting price, so it is priced and marketed against that offer rather than against whole villas.

A Nevis Peak residence. The 52 new-build residences along the 7th and 8th fairways are still being sold by the developer through its exclusive sales agent, with delivery scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. An owner reselling there is competing with the developer’s own remaining units, which shapes both the timing and the price.

Citizenship status. Some resale homes on the estate are approved under the St Kitts & Nevis citizenship program and some are not. An approved home can be bought by a buyer who wants the passport; one that is not reaches a smaller pool. This is confirmed before the home is priced. If you bought through the real-estate route of the program yourself, check the minimum hold period attached to your purchase has run — the St Kitts & Nevis program page sets out the current rule.

Your costs. In St Kitts & Nevis the vendor’s portion of stamp duty is a flat 10% of the consideration, on top of the agent’s commission. Every statutory charge on both sides of the sale is in the Caribbean property cost table.

Your buyer’s costs. A foreign buyer of a home that is not citizenship-approved generally needs an Alien Landholding Licence, at 10% of value and around three months to obtain; on approved real estate it is generally waived. That difference sits inside what a buyer is willing to pay, and inside how long the sale takes. The detail is in the landholding licence guide.

Tax at home. American owners should plan for the United States taxing the gain on a foreign sale, wherever the property is and whatever passport they hold.

A price you can check. A recommended asking price built from closed sales of comparable homes, with the differences between them and yours explained — not from other agents’ asking prices, and not the highest number that wins the listing.

A plan for finding the buyer. Who the likely buyer is for your particular home, and how they will be reached beyond people already searching resort listings.

The terms. Commission, the length of any exclusive period, what marketing is included and how either side can end the agreement.